Yoga

Yoga is built on the root yuj, to yoke or harness. The same root gives yukta, yoked or steady, and yujyasva, yoke yourself. The root first appears literally, at 1.14, where Krishna and Arjuna's chariot is yoked (yukte) with white horses. The verb comes at 2.38 (yujyasva, yoke yourself for battle); the noun yoga follows at 2.39. Having set out the understanding of sāṅkhya, Krishna says: now hear it in terms of yoga (buddhir yoge tv imāṃ śṛṇu). This is an understanding (buddhi) that, once yoked, lets Arjuna shed the bondage of action (karmabandha).

Chapter 2 then gives two definitions. At 2.48 Krishna tells Arjuna to act while established in yoga (yogasthaḥ), having let go of attachment and being even in success and failure, and closes: samatvaṃ yoga ucyate, evenness is called yoga. At 2.50 the one yoked to this understanding leaves behind both good and bad deeds here; therefore, the verse goes on, yoke yourself to yoga: yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam, usually rendered as yoga is skill in actions. The skill is the one the first line describes: acting without being bound by what one does. At 2.53 yoga is the state reached when the understanding stands unmoving in samādhi.

The sense widens as the teaching goes on. At 3.3 yoga becomes a path: jñāna-yoga for those of sāṅkhya, karma-yoga for the yogins. At 4.1 to 4.3 it is the ancient teaching itself, handed down from Vivasvat and lost over time. At 5.4 and 5.5 sāṅkhya and yoga are said to reach one goal. At 6.2 renunciation itself is called yoga, since no one becomes a yogī without giving up saṅkalpa, the mind's purposes and fancies. Verses 6.10 to 6.15 describe a seated practice: a clean place, a firm seat, body, head and neck held still, the mind made one-pointed. At 6.23 Krishna defines yoga by wordplay on its own root: the unyoking from union with pain (duḥkhasaṃyogaviyoga) is what is called yoga. Arjuna at 6.33 names it the yoga taught through evenness (sāmyena), linking it back to 2.48.

From chapter 9 the word turns to Krishna himself. At 9.4 he says all beings rest in him; at 9.5 he says they do not, and calls this paradox his sovereign yoga (paśya me yogam aiśvaram). In chapter 10 it is paired with vibhūti, his manifestations (10.7, 10.18). At 11.8 Arjuna is given a divine eye to see that same sovereign yoga, and he addresses Krishna as yogeśvara, lord of yoga (11.4). At 18.75 Sañjaya calls the whole dialogue yoga, heard directly from that lord of yoga.